Wait for history to count to ten, then you can come and get us, come and get me

[sovay]

My poem "Shadow-Song" is now online at Uncanny Magazine. I wrote it in October on a train to New York. It started off as a ghost poem for Bertolt Brecht, but it changed.

Elisabeth Hauptmann not only performed the initial translation of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) that evolved into Brecht and Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper (1928), she wrote much of the finished play's text, although she was not credited for it at the time. It is not completely a case of Brecht taking the labor of others for granted; Hauptmann seems to have published even her solo work under pseudonyms and anonymity by preference. She took credit for the book of the musical Happy End (1929) only under pretext of adapting it from an English-language original à la Threepenny when in fact she had written the story from scratch with lyrics by Brecht and music by Weill. I think it was complicated. Anyway, I knew who Kurt Weill was from childhood and certainly Brecht by the time I saw him haunting Marc Blitzstein in Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock (1999), but I must have been in college before I'd heard of Hauptmann. In life she was nicknamed Brecht's "devoted shadow," whence the title.

So that's my coincidental but heartfelt rebuttal to that article by Zoe Williams that's popped back up on my friendlist, about the value of art in times of apocalypse. Outside my office window, it appears to be lightly and dryly and sunnily snowing.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Congratulations! And it's getting some love on Twitter:

[sovay]

Congratulations!

Thank you!

And it's getting some love on Twitter

And thank you for linking me to that! I wouldn't see it otherwise.

[selenak]

Terrific poem. Re: Elisabeth Hauptmann, did you she lived in Missouri of all the places during the war, due to her sister having married one of the locals, and wrote an acid essay on segregation which she observed first hand when taking a bus while she was there? It's a Hauptmann detail I found out only a couple of years ago during a conference which was mainly about Lion Feuchtwanger, but where one of the presentations was about Hauptmann, another about Salka Viertel and one about Gina Knaus under the header "female exile writers".

[sovay]

Terrific poem.

Thank you.

Re: Elisabeth Hauptmann, did you she lived in Missouri of all the places during the war, due to her sister having married one of the locals, and wrote an acid essay on segregation which she observed first hand when taking a bus while she was there?

I knew she was in the U.S., but I did not know about Missouri or the essay. I'll have to track that down!

one of the presentations was about Hauptmann, another about Salka Viertel and one about Gina Knaus under the header "female exile writers".

That sounds great. (Kaus?)

[selenak]

Yes, it was "Kaus", sorry for the typo! All those three presentations were at a conference in Los Angeles in 2011, as mentioned here. You'll love this quote by Gina Kaus, apropos all the male exile writers moaning about the indignity of working for the movie industry: "I never had time to wonder whether it was undignified to write for the movies. I needed the money."

I'm a member of the International Feuchtwanger Society, so I visit these conferences which take place every two years, and they're full of fascinating trivia I hadn't come across elsewhere. As, for example, Manfred Flügge telling me he's convinced Brecht died because the state deliberately prevented him from getting medication only available in the West. He says there is a tape of Erich Mielke ranting about unreliable writers, and mentioning Brecht before adding, after an ominous pause, "...but then he died". "They didn't exactly kill him," the compact, fierce-looking Mr. Flügge pronounced, daring anyone to disagree, "but they let him die!"

[sovay]

Yes, it was "Kaus", sorry for the typo!

It's fine! I didn't want to be rude, but it was entirely possible this was another Gina I hadn't heard of.

You'll love this quote by Gina Kaus, apropos all the male exile writers moaning about the indignity of working for the movie industry: "I never had time to wonder whether it was undignified to write for the movies. I needed the money."

Hah. Yes. Thank you.

As, for example, Manfred Flügge telling me he's convinced Brecht died because the state deliberately prevented him from getting medication only available in the West. He says there is a tape of Erich Mielke ranting about unreliable writers, and mentioning Brecht before adding, after an ominous pause, "...but then he died". "They didn't exactly kill him," the compact, fierce-looking Mr. Flügge pronounced, daring anyone to disagree, "but they let him die!"

These conferences sound invaluable.

[selenak]

They are! And all six years, they take place in Los Angeles, because that's where the Feuchtwanger archive is, and the USC provides facilities to hold the conference at. Maybe the next time, you could consider attending - half of the LA presentations are in English anyway, and most are deeply interesting. The last time, we had Nicole Nottelmann there to tell us about Salka Viertel and her relationship with Garbo as described in this book.

[sovay]

Maybe the next time, you could consider attending - half of the LA presentations are in English anyway, and most are deeply interesting.

If a brick of money falls out of the sky, I will give it serious consideration! If not, I will look forward to your writeup.

The last time, we had Nicole Nottelmann there to tell us about Salka Viertel and her relationship with Garbo as described in this book.

Nice.

[dhampyresa]

I got actual chills at "let there be ballads to sing on the road to Berlin."

Edit: Also, congrats!

[sovay]

I got actual chills at "let there be ballads to sing on the road to Berlin."

Thank you. That's the best compliment.

[ladymondegreen]

Apropos of the poem, I've been meaning to ask if you've read Inside the Dream Palace by Sherill Tippins, which has an extended account of the making of the film of The City of Mahogany.

[sovay]

Apropos of the poem, I've been meaning to ask if you've read Inside the Dream Palace by Sherill Tippins, which has an extended account of the making of the film of The City of Mahogany.

I have not, but that sounds very much like I need to.